


Welcome Back, Joel Robinson

by tomorrowsthe16th



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Sad Robots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7539685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomorrowsthe16th/pseuds/tomorrowsthe16th
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Soultaker, Joel gets trapped on the Satellite of Love. Everyone feels a little differently about the whole thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic is basically sort of a deconstruction of Joike. I wanted to play around with how everyone would react with both Joel and Mike on the SOL, since I'm not especially fond of the happy family trope I see with them all. It feels a bit forced to me. Like there's so much more to discover, and that's what I wanna do here. Anyway I hope you guys like it.

“That’s right I knew there was something I liked about you, Mike! And you two bots, you just keep em flying and remember Joel, alright?!”

Joel was on the way out. Sure Joel didn’t want to _leave_  again, but the fish shop owner had important things to do on earth. At least that’s how Joel justified it.

Joel had been free of that place for five years, and simply wanted to stay as far away from the satellite of love as possible, but was unwilling to admit it. Joel had a lot of good memories there. Crow, Tom, G, and Cambot were some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. Leaving the satellite meant leaving them, and if Joel was going through with it…

Joel pushed away that awful implication that actions did in fact have consequences, and continued out until hearing someone who’d forgotten to wish her creator goodbye.

* * *

Back on Earth in Castle Forrester, Pearl was watching as Frank and Bobo played soul ring toss, when Observer pointed out to her that one of the robots was trying to escape.

“What?! Which one?” Pearl asked.

“The one who runs all the life support functions on the ship and keeps Mike not dead.”

“Ugh! Are you serious? I can’t keep showing him bad movies if he’s not not dead! Brain Guy, do your stuff.”

“Gladly.”

* * *

G had come to wish Joel one last goodbye. Joel, whose heart was hurting now, wished she didn’t. G was one of Joel’s best friends, and seeing her again, NOW, the former prisoner on the Satellite of Love couldn’t take it, couldn’t take never seeing her again, or at least never being friends with her again.

Until Joel had of an idea.

“Why don’t you come back to Earth with me?”

G was unsure at first. The satellite was the only home she’d known, but she had missed Joel so much. It’d been so long since they’d seen each other, and G felt no one on the ship understood her as much as Joel did.

“Umm… umm…” G pondered.

“It’s okay G. I’m not gonna hold it against you if you don’t come to Earth.”

“Ummm…. Okay! I’ll go!”

Joel and G shared a hug and made their way towards the ship Joel had used to come up here, only for it to malfunction as soon as G made her way inside.

“The hell?!” Joel exclaimed.

* * *

Mike, Crow, and Servo were talking amongst each other about Joel when they noticed Pearl calling. Again. She just showed the movie. What else could she want?

“Hey Mike,” Pearl greeted. “Just calling in to make sure you and your little Transformers know that there’s no way off Mrs. Pearl’s Wild Ride!”

Mike squinted at the video feed. “What?”

“You know what I’m talking about Nelsonny,” Pearl said, wagging her finger. “One of your robots almost escaped!”

“Escaped? But we’re all right here, who could have-”

And at that moment, the bridge door opened and out came Joel once again, accompanied by G!

“Change of plans guys,” Joel said, keeping his cool. “I’m gonna stay here!”

Crow and Servo were ecstatic, but Mike was focused on G.

“You tried to leave?!” Mike lectured “G, you control the higher functions on the ship! If you’re not here I’ll die!”

G looked as much like a student who had forgotten that there was a test today as a robot of her design could look. “Oops! Sorry Mike! I forgot about that!”

“Well at least no one got hurt,” Mike said. “Just don’t do it again, okay?”

G nodded.

Unfortunately, the reunion was interrupted as they noticed something bang on the screen. Bobo ran to pick it up and showed off the item, his soul, to the crew on the satellite, when he realized something.

“Wait, Lawgiver,” Bobo said. “Doesn’t this mean that you have two people to perform the experiment on?”

Pearl yanked the soul from Bobo and flung it off somewhere, causing Bobo and Frank to chase after it.

“Anyway,” Pearl continued, “I just realized that I now have two of you fuckers to perform my experiment on. So Mike, you and Joey-”

“Joel.” 

“Whatever. Mike, you and Johnny get along now. Or… don’t.”

And there went the transmission.

Everything was silent until Servo spoke up.

“So Joel, you wanna see how things are different around here?”

“Oh! And after that,” Crow said, “we should have a welcoming party!”

And thus a tour of the satellite and a welcoming party were had, and they all had a good time until everyone on the satellite was tuckered out and ready to go to sleep.

As Crow went on to his room, he thought about how he’d really lucked out. He hadn’t seen Joel in _centuries_  and almost forgot that face sometimes! He didn’t want Joel to just show up and leave him again like tha-

“Hey, Wait a minute!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly focused on Crow and Servo! The dialogue in this chapter is pretty awkward. My apologies.

Tom Servo had just gotten comfortable and was half asleep when he heard a knock at his door. Unfortunately the bot at the door took Servo’s groan as “Door’s open, I just don’t want to get up,” instead of “Go away I’m trying to get my beauty sleep here!” In said bot at the door’s defense, they were similar sounding groans.

“Servo?”

Servo rolled over, burying his face into his pillow as the door opened, letting in the light from the hallway. Luckily the intruder closed the door behind him, but Servo just wanted to get his seven and a half hours of beauty sleep without interruption.

“Servo are you awake?”

Ugh. Crow. Servo tried to go back to sleep as hard as he could but found it harder to do so as he was being nudged.

“Servo? Hey, Servo? Do you think-”

“Whatever it is Crow, can’t it wait til morning?”

“No.”

Servo hid further under the covers. “Well can’t you talk to Mike about it?”

“No. He wouldn’t get it.”

“Well what about Joel?”

“It’s about Joel.”

Servo groaned. “Well there’s Cambot, Magic Voice, G...”

“Cambot never talks back, we haven’t heard anything from Magic Voice in forever, and also no.”

Servo rolled over, wrapping himself in a blanket burrito, responding with a sleepy sarcasm, “Why don’t you talk to yourself about it?”

“Please Servo, you know that always ends badly.”

“You’re not going to leave until we talk about it are you?”

“Nope!”

Servo groaned in surrender and let Crow speak, hoping he could fall asleep again easily and that Crow wouldn’t notice if he did.

“Okay. You know how Joel’s back on the satellite now right?”

“Mmm.” Servo said, half listening and getting comfortable in his cocoon of blankets.

“But Joel’s only staying because the ship broke. Meaning that if it wasn’t broke, Joel was gonna leave us! Again!”

“Mhmm…”

“And neither of us even got invited to go to Earth! Joel specifically did not want us tagging along on the way back to that lousy little quaint Midwestern hot fish shop, but sure was ready and willing to bring _G_ down!”

“Hmm.”

“Joel was going to abandon us! AGAIN! And on purpose this time! Joel could have taken us to Earth, but instead wanted to leave us for dead for eternity in the cold void of sp-Servo are you even listening?”

Servo had almost fallen asleep to Crow’s complaining, by some miracle. Certainly he was tired, but he didn’t think that he was tired enough to sleep through Crow’s rant about how Joel had purposefully abandoned-WAIT A MINUTE.

Servo shot up immediately. “Joel was trying to give us the slip!”

“Exactly! It’s pretty obvious Joel doesn’t care about us anymore,” Crow bitterly remarked, “or at least none of us but G. Joel coulda abandoned us up here in the emptiness of space and wouldn’t have batted an eye at it!”

“And you know,” Servo mentioned, “now that I think about it, if Joel and G went down to Earth together, Mike would have died too, since he’s to dunderheaded to know how to run anything on the ship. We’d have been left without anyone to playfully mock, or make carry me places.”

“You see?!” Crow cried. “That proves it! Joel would be back home all comfortable and nice with the _best_ bot while we woulda been stuck up on the reject satellite all alone if it weren’t for that lousy ship malfunctioning! I almost wish they _did_ abandon us and kill Mike so I-I don’t…”

Crow plopped down on Servo’s bed crying. Servo tried to break free of the blanket he’d wrapped tightly around him, but found it futile, instead opting to move his whole body towards Crow in an attempt to comfort him.

“It’s-It’s been so long!” Crow choked out. “How can Joel just up and leave us like-like it was nothing?”

“Come on, honey,” Servo consoled, wiggling closer to him. “I know you missed Joel. _I_ missed Joel. You’d think spending over 500 years apart would make it easier, but… But it doesn’t hurt any less realizing the guy who made you and left you fully intends to leave you once more. We might not have Joel, but at least we have each other.”

Crow smiled. “Wow that’s really gay, Servo.”

Servo gave Crow a look and the two started laughing after a short pause. Thank goodness Servo could always count on Crow to ruin a moment. Any longer and the red bot would have been crying too. Thinking about was Joel was going to do to them, a second time, was somehow more depressing than the prospect of never seeing Joel again. The former was almost unbelievable. Except it had just happened.

“We should promise to stick together through this,” Servo said. “Have each other’s backs, you know. In case one of us gets like this again.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Crow agreed. “Let’s shake on it.”

Servo tried to get a hand free from his inescapable blanket burrito. Alas, it remained inescapable. Wiggling to try and get out of it, Servo looked at Crow, who had an incredibly smug look on his face. God, what an asshole.

“Get out,” Servo said jokingly.

“Actually, you think I could stay in here?” Crow asked. “Your bed is kinda comfy and I don’t wanna get up.”

“Crow, I know we said we’d have each other’s backs, but there is no way, no how you’re sleeping in my bed. So why don’t you run along to your room and go-”

Snoring noises interrupted Servo as he turned as noticed Crow was already asleep. That little shit! Deciding Crow wasn’t going to stay there for long, Servo rolled over, pushing Crow out of the bed and finally freeing himself from the blankety clutches he was trapped in. Crow didn’t wake up as he crashed to the floor, but Servo didn’t mind so long as Crow wasn’t taking up three quarters of _his_ bed, and he slept peacefully knowing that on the floor, Crow wouldn’t.

* * *

 

Everything on the satellite was so dark and dreary at 3am. That’s how Crow knew it was 3am. He’d only wanted to get a snack, but stopped when he saw Cambot had the transmission feed online.

Dr. Forrester and Pearl were still awake at this hour, eating Ramen noodles watching another screen.

“Uh…”

Pearl heard the noise and turned to him. “Oh, hey Art. We saw some activity going on up on the satellite and we decided to check it out. It’s a pppretty sad sight.”

Crow tried to get a better view of what they were looking at, trying to look at it from a different angle, and temporarily forgetting it was a transmission feed, not a window.

Looking closely, however, Crow was able to identify it as the satellite’s security room. He made his way down and found and when he opened the door, he found Mike, watching, _something_. Crow couldn’t see from the angle. And Mike didn’t seem to notice him come in. Crow almost tried saying something, but words wouldn’t come out. He tried harder and harder, but nothing would come out. He just wanted to know what Mike was doing. It wasn’t such a weird thing, but he was still tongue-tied, for lack of a better term. Everything froze around him. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t walk in the room. He just stood, frozen, until everything turned black around him and became really uncomfortable.

Crow groaned as he woke, looking up towards Servo’s racecar bed. Did Servo really push him on the floor? What a lousy host!

Then he thought about the dream he had. He’d completely forgotten about that night until now. What _was_ Mike doing in there, anyway? Oh well, he might as well sleep in his bed in his room instead of asking himself questions about weird things from his past on the floor of his friend’s room.

* * *

 

The scent of cardboard and hot glue was lingering in the air as Servo slowly woke. It was like nothing had ever changed. Sure the past 500 or so years of his life brought about intense change that those who had never been pure energy could only dream to understand, but it still felt like Joel never left. Everything felt normal after so long, Servo almost forgot he was supposed to be mad at Joel.

But surely it wouldn’t hurt to check out whatever invention Joel was working on.

So Servo hopped out of bed, perhaps with a little too much excitement, and hovered down to Joel’s old work room, where the inventor was connecting two cardboard hexagons with a toilet paper roll.

“Hey, could you hand me the glue gun?” Joel asked as Servo saw a hand behind a giant mountain of cardboard give Joel the glue gun in question. “Thanks, man.”

Servo couldn’t stop himself from saying “Mike?” getting the attention of the two humans.

Mike stood up from behind his cardboard mountain, sleep deprived, but still pretty cheery. “Oh hey, Servo. Me and Joel are just working on an invention exchange together.”

“An invention exchange? But we ha-” Servo stopped when he saw Mike miming that he should shut up, and changed the subject quickly. “Have you guys been doing this all night?”

Joel and Mike tilted their heads.

“Mike, you look like you haven’t slept a wink,” Servo said, concerned.

“Oh, you know, it’s no big deal,” Mike replied. “I was just having some trouble getting to sleep last night. I was excited about our new guest and all.”

“Alright,” Servo said, letting the answer go.

“Hey Tom, do you wanna help us with this?” Joel asked.

“N-No. I’m fine. I think I might get a bite to eat.” Servo said, running off.

That was weird. There was no other word to describe how familiar, yet eerie the scene Servo just saw was. Well, perhaps there was “familiar, yet eerie,” but “weird” rolled off the tongue better. Joel was acting like nothing had happened at all, while Mike was just being weird in general. Maybe Servo would be better off avoiding them in general. He could hang with Cambot or Crow. Speaking of which were was that latter asshole?

* * *

 

“Hey, uh, Pearl?”

“What is it, Art? Pearl’s busy.”

“I was just wondering, do you remember when you and Clayton were-”

“I’m sorry. Hold that thought. GOD **DAMMIT** BRAIN GUY! WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE OF THOSE GODDAMN STATIC PLASMA LAMP DOOHICKEYS! I’M RUNNING A MAD SCIENCE LAB HERE, _NOT_ BELLERIANCON 1999.”

And then the transmission cut off. So much for trying to ask Pearl about it. Eh, it probably wasn’t such a big deal anyway. Crow just couldn’t get it out of his mind. And honestly, at this point, anything was better than being around Joel.

* * *

 

“You know, Joel. The bots used to talk about you a lot,” Mike said, breaking the silence after Servo left. “I mean they liked me alright, but I could tell they liked you a whole lot better.”

Joel looked at Mike, unsure of what to say.

“I always sort of felt like it was my fault that you were gone. Because I was up here and you weren’t. I mean I know it was more a matter of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I can’t help but think it. Kinda silly, right?”

“Look, man,” Joel said, Mike feeling the inventor’s arm on his shoulder. “None of that stuff is your fault. It’s just the way things go sometimes.”

“Thanks, Joel,” Mike said. “You know, it might be kind of bad to say, but I’m glad you’re up here now. Everything just feels a lot more cheery now. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I saw Crow so happy.”

Joel didn’t answer.

“Not to mention,” Mike continued, “I think I got a lot to learn from you.”


End file.
